111 Robbed In Two Months

MIAMI -- German citizen Jorge Schell is the latest South Florida tourist to fall victim to violence.

Schell, 59, was killed on Thursday night after trying to rescue his wife from a purse snatcher. He was shot in the neck and died on the operating table at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

The incident happened about 9 p.m.

Schell and his wife, Sonya, 55, had just parked their rented car at the Days Inn Motel in Homestead and were walking to their room when two men approached, police said.

One of the robbers, armed with a gun, tried to steal Sonya Schell`s purse. Jorge Schell, who had walked ahead of his wife, heard the struggle and came to his wife`s aid. The robber pulled the trigger and the bullet entered Schell`s neck and exited through his chest.

He arrived at the hospital at 9:55 p.m. He died at 10:22 p.m.

The robbers sped away in a dark-colored car.

Sonya Schell had checked out of the hotel and could not be reached for comment. The hotel managers declined to be interviewed.

Police said the incident is not part of a trend.

``They are just victims like anyone else,`` said Metro-Dade Det. Patrick Brickman. ``We don`t look at it as a big deal, because people are robbed in their cars, at hotels and in the streets every day.

``It is just that when it is tourists, it becomes an event,`` Brickman said. ``I hate to say it, but robberies are kind of a routine because you have hundreds of them.``

According to Metro-Dade statistics, 645 tourist`s were robbed in 1992. Through February of this year, 111 tourists were robbed. Those figures include only attacks in unincorporated Dade, not those that occur within city limits.

Among some of the violent attacks on tourists in South Florida recently:

-- Feb. 15, 1993: Horst and Clare Abend of Germany were walking to their Fort Lauderdale hotel room when a man pulled a knife, forced his way into their room, tied them with telephone cord and robbed them of cash and jewelry.

-- Jan. 26, 1993: Jesus Delgado, a Venezuelan diplomat vacationing in Miami, was robbed and killed outside a home where he was to attend a dinner party.

-- Jan. 22, 1993: Canadian tourist Ralph Passero was fatally shot as he drove north on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. A female passenger was uninjured in the auto accident that followed the shooting.

-- Dec. 29, 1992: Marc Nadeau, 33, a Canadian, was robbed and then shot and killed as he and his father walked home from a convenience store in Lake Worth. His father, Armand, was wounded.

-- Oct. 27, 1992: Renate Morlock, 42, was shot and paralyzed as she and her husband were getting into their rental car outside a McDonald`s restaurant in Miami. Two men approached, grabbed her purse and then shot the German tourist.

-- Oct. 17, 1992: Sophocles and Helen Anastassiou of Redondo Beach, Calif., were assaulted and robbed by two men outside the Hilton Hotel in Dania.